1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to sorting tools, specifically to a tool for sorting beads which are sued for making craft and apparel items.
2. Description of Prior Art
Beads, used to make craft, apparel and jewelry items such as belts, fringes and earrings, are sold in a variety of shapes and sizes. Seed beads, cylindrical in construction, are thin slices of glass tubing of approximately 2 mm diameter. During the manufacturing process the edges of the beads become rounded. Due to the nature of the process, seed beads commonly vary in size from wafers of less than 1 mm thickness to cylinders of 3 mm or more in length within the same lot. They are oblate in shape and lie naturally on a pole when placed on a flat surface. Tubular beads are cylinders of approximately 2 mm diameter and 3.5 mm or more length and also vary in length as much as 2 mm within any size lot. Until now, bead-crafters wanting to make symmetrical items, or two or more items of the same size, have selected equal-sized beads by repeated comparison of one bead with others until a sufficient number of beads was obtained. Since a simple beaded craft item can require the use of five hundred or more beads, this method of bead selection clearly has been inefficient for bead-crafters working with large numbers of beads. The lack of a means for sorting beads accurately, consistently and in bulk quantities has been responsible, in part, for keeping beaded jewelry and apparel items out of the mainstream of fashion and has made beads one of the least popular of the many craft media.